“Your world is there.” He said. “You have no further need of me.”
Aram bowed. “Thank you, sir. And give our thanks to your great lord.”
Bendan inclined his head and turned away. He strode quickly away from them in rapidly accelerating movements and faded suddenly from view. Aram looked at Florm.
“Are you alright, my lord?”
Florm gazed toward the distant light and chuckled. “There is a lovely sight for my old eyes.” He glanced at Aram. “Life is ever interesting since you came along, my friend. Yes, I am fine.”
“Thaniel?”
“Yes, but I want to get out of here.”
Aram nodded. “Let’s get back into the sunlight.”
Two hours later, they stepped from the mountain onto another road like the one that had led them inside. There was no gate or any sign that the road was anything other than a conduit leading into a mine. The light at first seemed very bright, but the sun was angled down the sky to the west and after their eyes adjusted, the tall trees cast them once again into gloom. They moved southward through the dense forest toward the river.
When they reached the river’s edge and came out from under the trees, they found another bridge like the other, weathered and ancient, but solid. Aram stepped onto it and looked westward down across Vallenvale. He estimated that they’d come out of the mountain at least a hundred miles east of the point where they had entered.
The valley was a bit narrower here than farther west and when Aram turned and looked east, he could see that the southern mountain range gradually bent northward toward the mountains of Ferros, effectively pinching off the vale. A hundred miles or so east of the bridge where they stood, the vale ended and the ground began to rise toward another broad, timbered summit between two high peaks. He remembered Alvern and looked up into the sky.
Bending his mind to the effort, he called to the eagle. “Lord Alvern, are you still there?”
“I am here, my lord.” Came the immediate reply. The eagle sounded overjoyed. “You have come back from the dead.”
“Not exactly,” Aram replied, “but near enough. Where are you?”
“I see you now, my lord. You are standing on the bridge east of me.”
“Where are our enemies?”
“Most of them followed you into the earth and have not emerged. The rest waited for two days and then went back through the mountains to the west out of Vallenvale.”
“Two days? How long have we been gone?”
“This is the fourth day since you went into the underearth, my lord.”
Aram glanced at the horses in surprise. “Did you realize that we were gone that long?”
The horses were as perplexed as he was.
“Perhaps,” suggested Florm, “time moves differently in the realm of Ferros than it does on the surface of the world.”
“Perhaps, or maybe we were unconscious for most of that time. It’s no great matter now.” Aram glanced westward at the sun’s position. “We have some daylight left. Let’s get across the bridge and move on to the east. Thaniel, are you strong enough to bear me?”
“I am, my lord. I will bear you as far as you wish to go.”
Aram smiled. “Let’s just get back across this bridge and into our own world a ways, my friend. That will suffice for today.”
XXVIII
Alvern came down out of the sky before they reached the southern bank of the river, which Florm now informed Aram had once been called Secesh. The eagle swooped low. “I am happy to report that the valley is clear of lashers in all directions. But there is a great company of wolves coming from the west. I told them of your return, my lord. They would speak with you.”
Aram nodded. “We’ll camp a few miles to the east of the bridge tonight. You say the valley is clear of enemies?”
“I have searched it from one end to another looking for you, my lord.” The eagle answered. “There is nothing but wild creatures about, anywhere.”
Aram looked up at the great bird, hovering on the wind. “Thank you, Lord Alvern. I don’t know how we will ever repay you. We owe you our lives.”
“Forgive me, my lord.” The eagle’s golden eyes gazed back at him. There was an odd intensity in the rich honey-colored depths. “But nothing could be less so. Long have I traveled the highways of the air and with sadness watched as the world fell, land by land, and people by people, into the morass of madness and misery of the grim lord of the tower.
“It seemed to me that there was no hope—that the good things of the earth would ultimately fail from it completely and despair would hold sway forever. Then I looked down one day and I saw you, struggling into the wilderness through the long valley where the river bursts from the mountain. You went into the darkness of that mountain as well and emerged again alive, just as you did today.
“I observed you as you warred with the wolves and gained mastery over them. I watched you save the life of the king of horses. I know what you did for Willet and Cree, and for many others. And then I watched you, and this great fellow here, defeat the forces of the enemy and send them into ruin. My lord, the world has changed since you came into it. Hope has returned. I am at your service ever.”
The great bird flexed his magnificent wings and the wind picked him up a few feet. He glanced toward the southern mountains. “But now, my lord, if there is no further need, I would like to go home.”
Aram raised his hand. “Go in peace, my friend. Thank you.”
The great eagle began to soar up into the sky but then immediately returned. “My lord?”
“Yes?”
“Return to us. Whatever you find upon the great mountain, return to us.”
Aram nodded solemnly. “I will return.”
“Farewell, my lord.”
“Farewell, lord Alvern.”
With great beats of his wings, the eagle rose and sailed high into the sky and went toward the southwest. Aram watched him go.
“Do you think he will fly over the very heights of those mountains?” He asked Florm.
The old horse chuckled. “It would not surprise me.”
They exited the bridge and turned toward the east and moved along the ancient road in a steady walk. It was a pleasant evening, cool but not yet cold. Aram glanced over at Florm.
“My lord, what did the Guardians say to Ferros?”
“I can’t say,” the horse answered. “I don’t speak or understand the high language.”
“They did not seem to fear him.”
“No,” Florm agreed, “they did not.”
“To whom do they answer then, if not the gods?”
“There is only One other. They must answer to Him.”
Aram stared at him. “Why would servants of the Maker Himself become guardians of a device meant for communication between your people and mine?”
“I’m sorry, lord Aram,” Florm answered. “But I don’t know. It is a great mystery.”
They camped that night near the tumbled stone ruins of a small village. Aram built a fire. The night promised to be cool. It was late in the year and they had traveled several hundred miles northward over the curve of the world from the more temperate regions around his valley.
There was mist in the valley in the morning, heavy and cold. Aram made kolfa while the horses grazed nearby, their noses deep in the heavy, damp grass. He decided to let them eat their fill while he waited for the arrival of the wolves. Always cautious, he set his bow discreetly to one side, but close to his hand, and kept his sword in its scabbard on his back.
When the mist lifted and the sun poured into the valley through the gap in the eastern mountains, Aram found the camp ringed with hundreds of wolves. These animals were generally smaller and more compact than Durlrang’s people and their fur was thicker and longer. Leorg was in the midst of them sitting on his haunches, with Gorfang at his side.
Aram stood and raised his hand, palm out. “Good morning, Leorg.”
Leorg bowed his forehead to the gro
und. “Good morning, master.”
About a third of the wolves mimicked Leorg’s act of obeisance but the rest watched silently and did nothing. Aram looked around at them. They stared back at him appraisingly and the air was thick with doubt and suspicion. Leorg raised his head and spoke.
“You have come back alive from the underearth, master. Is there nothing you cannot do?”
Aram realized instantly that this was spoken for the benefit of the others. He replied evenly and without emotion.
“I came back because Ferros and I reached an understanding, Leorg.”
“And your enemies?”
“They will not return.”
Leorg nodded with satisfaction and glanced furtively at his companions. “Is there anything further we may do for you, lord Aram?”
Aram shook his head. “Thank you, Leorg. But there is nothing. Now we will go on to the mountain of Kelven.”
Leorg let this information sink in to those around him. Then he indicated a small, black wolf seated on his left by the rangy Gorfang. “This is my cousin, Kolgar. He is lord of the wolves of this valley. My people and I will lodge with him this winter. We’ll wait here for your return, master.”
Aram acknowledged the new wolf with a slight nod of his head and thought that he saw something akin to shrewd calculation in Kolgar’s dark brown eyes. Turning back to Leorg, he squatted down so that his head was on the same level as that of the gray wolf. “Leorg, is it true that I slew your father?”
The question surprised Leorg. Aram could see in the wolf’s clever eyes that he was not certain of the turn in the conversation. But Leorg had long since decided to trust this man and he nodded. “As I heard it told, my lord, it was out on the great avenue before your city.”
“So your father and his people originally inhabited my valley?”
“His people, yes—but not all of those here. Kolgar’s people have always dwelt in Vallenvale. But your valley was the home of my father’s tribe.”
“And you are now lord of that tribe.”
The wolf gazed back at him evenly. “I am.”
“Then go home.”
The wolf cocked his head slightly. “Master?”
“Go home, Leorg. You and your people. Go home to the lands of your fathers.”
Leorg straightened his head and stared directly into Aram’s face. “But that is your valley, my lord, and you drove us from there.”
“Because at the time your people did not keep to the laws of Kelven. But this has changed, has it not?”
“Because of you, master, yes.”
Aram stood up and looked around at the assembled wolves before he spoke. “And also because of you, lord Leorg. While most of your people fell under the evil of Manon, you did not. You always honored the laws of Kelven. Kolgar is gracious to extend to you an invitation. But it is time. There are plenty of deer for all in my valley if their populations are respected. And I know that you will respect them. Take your people and go home.”
Astounded by this, Leorg stared for a moment then bent his head to the ground. One by one, slowly but surely as the meaning of Aram’s words sank in, all the others did the same. “Thank you, master.” Leorg answered, and his voice was thick with emotion. “You are kind. We will obey all that you have taught us.”
“Good, my friend. Travel well—get home before winter.” Aram turned to leave but then hesitated. “Leorg?”
“Yes, master?”
“There is a bear there. He lived in the grotto near the city wall but now has sought a new home in the hills to the north of the city. He and his family are not to be molested.”
“Yes, master, we know of Borlus. We are all aware of your regard for him.” Leorg’s quiet laugh was quick but sincere. “We will guard him and his family.”
“Good.” Aram looked around again. “Watch, all of you. Watch to the west. Tell me of anything that occurs when I return. And hold always to the laws of Kelven. Farewell.”
“Farewell, master.” After bowing to him again, the wolves turned and glided away in small groups.
Aram broke camp, retrieved his weaponry, secured the saddle upon Thaniel’s back and climbed into it, and he and the horses turned eastward into the rising sun. The broad green swath of Vallenvale stretched before and behind them. To the north rose the immense sheer wall of the mountains of Ferros. To the south were the northern ranges of the high mountains that Aram could see from the tower in his city, not as formidable as those to the north but tall and rugged nonetheless.
Two days later, they came to where the road ended in the ruins of an ancient town and began the climb up through tangled and timbered wilderness toward the saddle between the peaks. The ground rose gradually and though rocky and timbered and cut by many small tumbling streams that fed the headwaters of the Secesh, was not as difficult to negotiate as it had appeared from the valley.
For two days they climbed while behind them Vallenvale fell into the mists. On the second night they camped just below the summit of the saddle. It was cold and the clouds sagged heavily down, hiding the peaks, and gathered close to the ground. Aram started a fire in a stand of firs where the ground was flat enough that the horses could pass a reasonably comfortable night.
It snowed during the night, just a skiff, but the morning dawned clear and crisp. Aram sat close to the fire, cupping a hot mug of Findaen’s kolfa in his hands. Florm came out of the trees and cast a critical eye over his clothing.
“We will pass over the summit today, lord Aram, and we will face the wind. A wind more fierce than any you have likely experienced before. Do you think that you are dressed warmly enough?”
“These are all I have, my lord, whether they are suitable or not. I am committed to climb a mountain in winter in these clothes. They will have to withstand the wind.”
Florm chuckled ruefully. “To be honest, I am more worried about myself. I’ve been here before and I remember the wind. I was much younger then. I fully expect to be miserable and misery seems to be less if it is shared.”
“I’ll be as miserable as you like, my lord, if it will help. I can even complain from time to time.”
“Good, because I can expect nothing in the way of commiseration from a young buck like Thaniel.”
“How many sons do you have, my lord?”
“Just Thaniel.” Florm answered. “Just one fine son.”
Aram looked over at the younger horse. Thaniel had wandered over to the stream and lowered his nose into the clear, cold water. “He is that. As well as a good friend and a great warrior. He is a person of superior quality—your son.”
“It is kind of you to say it.”
“It was not kindness that prompted me, my lord,” Aram answered evenly, “but honesty.”
An hour later, they crossed through the saddle and came out of the trees upon a broad high plateau covered with clumps of short grasses and punctuated with spires of barren rock. The morning sun shone in cold, clear sky. They had gained several thousand feet of altitude and the mountains that bent away to the south and those that continued on along the northern border of the plateau appeared less formidable from this vantage than they had from the valley. Their frosted peaks, however, viewed at closer range, appeared, if anything, more rugged. The bitter wind blew strong in their faces and felt as though it had originated somewhere upon ice.
Aram gazed out across the plateau. The pale ground, barren between widely scattered bunches of yellow grass, was rocky, covered with broken slabs of thin, flat stone. Punching up through this bleak aspect, spires of darker rock rose up like bent and broken daggers all about the rolling country, fading beyond sight into the distance. There were no trees. If there had ever been trees on this high wild ground, Aram thought, the fierce wind would have long since blown them into wreckage and thrown them over the pass into Vallenvale.
The tops of the mountains to the north were white with snow—snow that looked as if it never left those barren peaks and slopes. The mountains to the south were also snow-
covered, but Aram couldn’t be certain that this wasn’t the result of a recent storm. Those peaks were steep-sided and pointed, like wolves’ teeth. Thaniel had been right to call them impassable.
As they trended eastward, both ranges of mountains veered away from the broad, cold, rocky plateau and went beyond the line of sight. The plateau itself seemed to go on until it vanished over the edge of the world, until it and the mountains that angled away on both sides, and even the horizon, were at last swallowed up by the thin, icy sky.
Aram pulled at the collar of his coat and looked over at Florm. “It’s a bit late in the year to be making a journey through country such as this, is it not?”
Florm chuckled even as he bent his great head and half closed his eyes against the gale. “Do not worry, my friend, there is no winter on Kelven’s mountain.”
“Why? Is it that much farther to the south?”
“No.” Florm answered and he halted, swinging his head around toward the southeast. “It is because Kelven controls its weather. It is there.”
Aram looked toward the southeast. Far away across the world, beyond the pale brown and yellow vastness of the plateau, a great mass, slightly darker than the pale sky behind it, rose up into the heavens. It was still so distant and so vast that it seemed almost to be a part of the sky itself.
“The mountain of Kelven.” Florm said. “The mountain at the middle of the world.”
Aram narrowed his eyes against the force of the wind and stared at the enormity of the thing that rose above the southeastern horizon. The mountain was so massive that his eye could not reveal it all. It was a clear morning but even so the top of the mountain extended so far into the sky that details of its summit could not begin to be resolved.
“And you want me to climb that?” He asked incredulously.
The horse looked at him. “More importantly, Kelven does. Whether you will or will not, of course, is up to you.”
Aram grinned ruefully and tugged his collar higher. “Do you think I will live long enough to complete such a task?”
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